‘We’re at War Now’: A Sister, Accused of Fair-Weather Mets Fandom, Fires Back

Priscilla Moronta in a New York Mets T-shirt, with her husband, Bernardo, in 2009.CreditCreditMaureen A. Doolan Boyle

Few mixtures are as volatile as the combination of family dynamics and baseball fandom.

As evidence: In a New York Times article about Mets fans’ annoyance with Yankees fans suddenly cheering for the Mets, a man named Michael Flores cited his own sister, Priscilla Moronta, as a bandwagon-jumper.

Mr. Flores said she had been a Yankees fan for decades and had only come around to the Mets during their playoff series with the Dodgers last week. “You can’t have it both ways,” he said.

Ms. Moronta contacted The Times on Thursday, after reading the article, to forcefully dispute her brother’s characterization.

“We’re at war now,” she said.

She furnished proof that she had paid her dues as a Mets fan: several photos from 2009 of her in Mets regalia, including one of her in a Mets jersey with “Priscilla” on the back. (The Mets finished 23 games out of first place that year.)

The photos, she said, were the tip of the iceberg.

Ms. Moronta, 37, of Sunset Park, Brooklyn, a vice president of a company that runs Internet radio stations, said she had been an ardent Mets rooter since she was 5.

She went to dozens of games at Shea Stadium with an uncle who had season tickets — many of them with her brother Michael.

“The best thing that ever happened to me was when I was working with Macmillan in 2001 and I got to sit in the box seats in the front row,” she said.

Ms. Moronta has been to Yankee Stadium perhaps twice, she said. She did not enjoy it.

Did there come a time, a reporter asked Ms. Moronta, when she was ever a Yankees fan?

“Oh God, no,” she said. “The closest I ever came to becoming a Yankee fan was when I married one.”

She recalled one of her first dates with the man who is now her husband, Bernardo Moronta. They went to a Yankees-Mets game.

“We didn’t realize that the other one was rooting for the other team until we were sitting watching the game,” she said. “This led to a serious discussion.”

Mr. Moronta said that if anyone in the family was a turncoat, it is he: He has been rooting for the Mets this postseason in support of his wife.

Michael Flores did not immediately return a call seeking his side of the family dispute.

Ms. Moronta said she did not know why he would have accused her of being a fair-weather Mets fan.

“It was really surprising to me that he said that,” she said. “Because of all people, it wouldn’t be me.”

Correction:Oct. 22, 2015

An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of a publishing company where Priscilla Moronta once worked. It is Macmillan, not McMillan.

Correction:Oct. 22, 2015

An earlier version of the picture with this article carried an erroneous credit. The photograph of Priscilla Moronta was taken by Maureen A. Doolan Boyle, not Ms. Moronta’s husband, Bernardo.

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 29 of the New York edition with the headline: Siblings Feud Over Which Is True Fan of the Mets. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe